


fly high

by mixians



Category: Super Junior, Super Junior-M
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-24
Updated: 2015-03-24
Packaged: 2018-03-19 08:32:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,158
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3603408
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mixians/pseuds/mixians
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>zhou mi tries a new job for a month. (he’s considering staying a while longer.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	fly high

**Author's Note:**

> this is actually from forever ago -- the 2014 round of qmidayeveryday @ lj -- but i forgot to crosspost, so now is as good a time as any! happy reading!

Zhou Mi fixes his hat one last time in the passenger seat mirror, pushes the car door open, and waves to his manager as he steps out. "Bye, hyung! Wish me luck!"  
  
Junghoon barely spares him a glance before turning back to face front. "Good luck."  
  
"You could be a little more enthusiastic," Zhou Mi says, slamming the door shut and pouting at Junghoon through the open window.  
  
"Okay," Junghoon says. "Fine. Good luck! Make sure you keep the camera and mic on whenever possible. There'll be a few in the plane, but the equipment on you is the most important."  
  
Zhou Mi beams. "Thanks, hyung. I'll be careful. I'll be back Wednesday, three p.m. Don't forget me!"  
  
"Like I could," Junghoon says under his breath as he drives away. Zhou Mi doesn't miss it.  
  
The airport in the morning always feels like a rush, but today, there are no cameras in his face or people screaming around him, nobody ushering him in directions he can't even see; today, he's unknown, finally relaxed within the bustling crowd. A couple of girls stare as he walks past, but he just pushes his sunglasses a little further up his nose and pretends not to notice. They don't even take pictures—maybe they just like Zhou Mi's suitcase. It _is_ Gucci, after all.  
  
A guy dressed similarly to him steps out from behind the counter when Zhou Mi arrives for check-in. He doesn't bow, but instead extends his hand and grins. "I'm Henry. You're Zhou Mi?"  
  
Zhou Mi takes it. "Yeah. Do you think you could show me around? I'm still a little lost."  
  
"Hey, that's my job," Henry says, clapping Zhou Mi on the back. "We're part of the same cabin crew for this flight. They assigned me to help you get settled, get a feel for how things go around here. You read the papers they sent you, right?" Zhou Mi nods. "Yeah, just remember that, and you'll be fine. Follow me."  
  
They turn down a long hall. Henry talks excitedly the whole way down. "You know, I'm really glad you're here. Not because you're a celebrity or anything—oh, sorry, was I not supposed to bring that up? My sister's a fan, but I promise I won't go all weird on you or anything—but ever since I got here they've decided that since I'm the Taiwanese one, I have to make all the Chinese announcements. I grew up in _Canada_. I have to memorize the announcements, and I still mess up sometimes. And some of the passengers try to speak to me in dialect I don't understand, and I get kind of scared, so—"  
  
"Don't worry," Zhou Mi says, laughing. "I have to learn dialect for concert tours. I should be able to handle it."  
  
Henry grins. "I knew you'd be a good addition to the team. How long are you here for again? A month? Maybe you should talk to your agent or whatever, get a post here for longer."  
  
"I wish," Zhou Mi says.  
  
Henry doesn't look like he hears it. Instead, he gestures to the room the hall has opened up to. There are a few plush, blue couches in the center, a TV playing the news on the wall opposite them, and a cluster of computer monitors in the corner. "Welcome to the crew room. You sign in over by the computers over there—you've got your information? Good—and then we'll head to the plane and get our briefing. Easy, right?"  
  
"Yeah," Zhou Mi says, but his mind's whirling. Henry leads him through check-in, shows him the way to their gate, and introduces him to some of the other crew members for their flight. One member freezes and stares at him so hard he can't help but fidget a bit under her gaze, but it goes well otherwise. Zhou Mi hasn't had any Korean promotions in years.  
  
After the briefing, Zhou Mi stands with Krystal, another flight attendant, at the entrance as people board and by the time there's a steady stream of people coming into the aircraft, his cheeks hurt from smiling and he's lost track of how many times he's said "Hello, welcome aboard Air China" or "All the way at the end, on the left." A sleepy-eyed boy seems too dazed to even comprehend Zhou Mi's directions, wandering down the aisle and past his seat before he turns back around, looking sheepish, and wades through the line going in the opposite direction. Zhou Mi has to suppress a laugh at that.  
  
He does the safety demonstration—he's been practicing for weeks, in addition to the training sessions he's had to attend—and after helping to serve first class, he takes a stop in the bathroom. Zhou Mi unclips the tiny camera attached to his tie and holds it at a distance so it can see him clearly. "Hi everyone! It's Zhou Mi."  
  
Henry gives him an odd look when he emerges. "Do all famous people talk to themselves in the bathroom?"  
  
"It's for the camera," Zhou Mi says, pointing at his tie.  
  
Henry squints. "The tie?"  
  
"There's a camera there," he explains. "On the tie."  
  
"Oh," Henry says. He waves at a spot that's about a foot too low. "Hi! I'm Henry!"  
  
"Henry's my colleague," Zhou Mi tells the camera. "He's really cool."  
  
Krystal, passing by, looks at them both like they've gone insane.  
  
"It's for the camera!" Henry calls after her, but she's already gone.  
  
Henry and Zhou Mi team up to work the beverage cart. It reminds Zhou Mi of his days working as a waiter in his parents' restaurant when he was a teenager, still practicing for the local singing competitions, long before he moved to Beijing and found himself being recruited by SM Entertainment. He'd almost ended up like that, working there forever, which probably wouldn't have been terrible, but being a waiter never was his thing.  
  
He nearly drops a can of Coke into the lap of a toddler, and actually spills a bit of coffee on the leg of a businessman's suit—he's upset, but Zhou Mi manages to smile a little wider and assure him that his dry cleaning will be taken care of by the airline. Henry hands him a Sorry Form while Zhou Mi does his best to clean up.  
  
After that, there aren't too many more mishaps. Zhou Mi does skip an entire row by accident, but he's the one who notices anyway. He serves the couple in the aisle and middle seats, but he has to ask them to wake the sleepy-eyed boy from before. The plane has only been in the air half an hour, but he's already fallen fast asleep. The woman next to him pokes him a few times in the shoulder and he stirs, blinking a few times before he spots Zhou Mi, and then he freezes.  
  
"Sir, what would you like to drink?" Zhou Mi asks. The boy only stares in response. Maybe Zhou Mi's speaking the wrong language. He repeats it, but in Chinese this time. No response. He tries it in stilted English as well, but there's still no answer. He switches back to Korean. "Is there something on my face?"  
  
"I—um, no, I'm sorry," the boy says finally, cheeks coloring. Cute. "You look like someone I know. I'll have a Coke, please."  
  
When they've almost reached the end of the aisle, a few rows down from the boy from before, Henry sings, "Someone's got an admirer."  
  
"Who?" Zhou Mi laughs. "That boy back there? I think he was just tired."  
  
"You should've seen the way he was looking at you when we left," Henry says, doing something odd with his eyebrows. "He looked, like… starstruck or something. Maybe he's interested."  
  
"Maybe you need to get your eyes checked," Zhou Mi says back.  
  
"Well," Henry says, shrugging, "don't lose an opportunity when you've got one."  
  
Zhou Mi kicks him as discreetly as he can. "You're crazy."  
  
"I'm never wrong about these things," Henry says, smug. "You'll see."  
  
Not ten minutes later, Zhou Mi is taking a break when the same sleepy boy from earlier falls out of the airplane restroom, phone tumbling out of his pocket as he hits the floor. Zhou Mi hurries to help him up. Again, the boy looks dazed, even when Zhou Mi bends down and picks up the phone for him. When he turns the phone over to hand it back, it's on—and shining brightly from the screen is Zhou Mi's smiling face.  
  
"Um, I—" the boy says. There's a hint of red crawling up his neck, and a bit in his cheeks and the tips of his ears. "It's not what—"  
  
"Are you a fan?" Zhou Mi says, trying not to smile too hard. "I don't get to meet a lot of Korean fans these days, much less male ones."  
  
"I—yeah. You're really—you?" He glances down at Zhou Mi's nametag. "Mimi. Zhou Mi?"  
  
"That's me."  
  
The boy digs into his pocket, but comes up empty. "I don't have a pen or paper, but do you think you could, uh—"  
  
"Sign for you?" Zhou Mi finishes, grinning. "Of course."  
  
When the boy has hurried back from his seat, paper and pen in hand, Zhou Mi asks his name. "Kyuhyun," he says. When Zhou Mi tries to repeat it, tongue unable to wrap around the syllables the way he wants it to, Kyuhyun laughs. "Kyu-hyun," he says, enunciating. "If it's easier, my Chinese name is Guixian?"  
  
"Kui Xian," Zhou Mi says. Kyuhyun opens his mouth and closes it just as quickly when Zhou Mi takes the paper and pen from him to sign. "I like it."  
  
Zhou Mi hands everything back when he's finished, and Kyuhyun's smiling so widely it's a little frightening. Kyuhyun turns to leave, but stops. "Wait. Why are you dressed as a flight attendant?"  
  
" _Mimi,_ " he says, "it's a secret. Promise not to tell?" Kyuhyun nods, and Zhou Mi taps the camera clipped to his tie. "I'm participating in a new show. I have to work in a different profession for a month. It's an experiment, sort of."  
  
"Wow," Kyuhyun says, eyes wide. "Are you only flying Air China?"  
  
"Yeah," Zhou Mi says. "Why?"  
  
"I come to China a lot on business. So maybe I'll see you," Kyuhyun says.  
  
"Business?" Zhou Mi glances at Kyuhyun's t-shirt and ripped jeans. "You don't really look the part."  
  
"It's, um, a different kind of business," Kyuhyun says, then mumbles something so quickly Zhou Mi can't make it out.  
  
"What?"  
  
"There are a lot of video game tournaments in China," he says, looking at a spot somewhere to the left of Zhou Mi's head. "I compete in them. For a living."  
  
"That's nothing to be ashamed of," Zhou Mi says. "I always tell people to follow their dreams, don't I? Look at where it got me."  
  
Kyuhyun looks embarrassed again. "You're. Uh. Actually the reason why I decided to pursue it."  
  
"Really?" Zhou Mi says, so loudly that a few people in the rows nearby turn around. He gives them a placating smile and a half-hearted _Sorry._ "I can't tell you how happy that makes me."  
  
Kyuhyun shrugs, still not looking directly at Zhou Mi, but the corners of his lips are just barely turned up. "My friend introduced me to your music a few years back. I was about to go to college and major in mathematics, but I saw one of your interviews and whenever you talked about following your dreams, you looked so happy I had to believe it. So I dropped out."  
  
"And it worked out, right? Looking at you now, it seems like it."  
  
"Yeah," Kyuhyun says after a moment. "Yeah, it did."  
  
The seatbelt sign blinks on. "I'm glad," Zhou Mi says. "I think you have to sit back down now."  
  
"Oh, okay," Kyuhyun says, and heads back down the aisle. A couple of rows down, he turns back around. "By the way. You don't really look the part, either."  
  
Zhou Mi laughs and shoos him away. A few minutes later, Henry comes up behind him and sings, just loudly enough for Zhou Mi to hear, "Told you so."  
  
Henry makes Zhou Mi do the Chinese announcement when they touch down in Beijing, his only reasoning being "You got to meet someone," and, when Zhou Mi starts to protest, "Don't even try to pretend you didn't think he was cute." Zhou Mi concedes.  
  
He, Henry, and Krystal stand at the exit once again to thank the passengers on the way out. As Kyuhyun goes by, Zhou Mi takes a moment to wave.  
  
Kyuhyun waves back. "See you soon," he mouths.  
  
"I'm looking forward to it," Zhou Mi wants to say, but Kyuhyun's already gone. It's okay, he decides. He's got a whole month ahead of him—plenty of time to get to know a new friend.  
  


 


End file.
